“I don’t know. Between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m., I think. Jenny heard it. She thought it was the dog.”
“Who found him?”
“Annie did.”
I winced. Annie was their three-year-old.
“At around 6:00 this morning,” he was saying. “Kid was unconscious. Passed out, drunk out of his mind. Annie thought he was asleep. Came and got us because she didn’t want to use the bathroom with him in there. She was afraid she’d wake him up.
“I found an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle in his room. He’d probably been drinking all night. Annie goes in there and he’s all sprawled out, got a belt around his neck, passed out on the bathroom floor, all tangled up in this pink plastic Cinderella shower curtain. He picked the girls’ bathroom for some reason. Probably would’ve killed himself if the rod hadn’t fallen. Thank God for cheap construction. I always knew there was a good reason I’m poor.”
“How is he now?”
“Hung over, probably.”
“He wasn’t hurt?”
“Nope.”
“I’m sorry, Tony. I had no idea he was in that kind of shape.”
“It’s not your fault. That kid’s in the grip.”
“Of what?”
“God only knows. We’d been up the night before, him and me, talking about demons. He told me his stories, the ones he’s telling you, about old Slash Back.”
“Peter Terry.”
“That’s his name?”
“Yep.”
“I always thought demon names would be more exotic. Something sort of Aramaic. Or medieval.”
“I’m sure it’s just an alias.”
“Well, whatever his name is, the dude’s got this kid scared. Scared him right out of his mind, I think.”
“So you think this is in direct response to the demon thing?”
“Gotta be.”
“Is this how demons usually work?”
“Think about all the people in the Gospels. Tortured, basically. They get inside your body and make you sick. Get inside your head and mess with it. Mess with your thinking.”
“You think he’s possessed?” Tony and I hadn’t yet uttered the word. It scared me just to think about it.
“I don’t think so. I seen that before, and it’s got a whole different feel to it. This guy—he’s just scared. Scared from the inside.”
“Like Erik Zocci.”
“Like Erik Zocci. Exactly,” Tony said. “What I can’t figure out is, why them?”
“I’m working on that. I’m in Chicago right now.”
I gave Tony a quick update on my situation, ending with my own version of the shower curtain story.
He whistled. “You got a target painted on your face. Someone’s got you all singled out.”
“Terrific,” I said. “I wish I knew what to do about it.”
“Stand firm,” Tony said, quoting Ephesians once again. “And wear your gear. I mean, God went to a lot of trouble to provide it for you. And never, ever forget whose side you’re on.”
“How’s Annie?”
“Oh, she’s fine. She doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“And everyone else?”
“They’re doing fine. You gotta remember, Dylan. Jenny and me, we spent our whole marriage in Haiti and Nicaragua. My kids don’t spook easy.”
Thank God for that. I dug in my bag for a pen. “Do you have the Green Oaks number on you?”
He looked it up and gave it to me. “Jenny’s probably on her way back. I got class. Her turn to wrangle these kids.”
We hung up and I dialed Green Oaks. They wouldn’t let me talk to Gavin, of course. Without a signed consent, they couldn’t even confirm that he was a patient there. But they did allow me to leave a message and assured me that if he was a patient there, he would receive the message. I left Gavin my cell phone number and asked him to call me, saving the Green Oaks number in my phone so I would recognize the incoming call when it came.
Before heading into the library, I spent a few minutes alone on the steps, praying. For Gavin. For myself. For the DeStefanos. For the Zoccis. For myself again.
Sitting there, watching the sun flick off the waves of Lake Michigan, students swarming around me, priests and nuns walking briskly on the tidy concrete walkways of this lovely Catholic campus, all I could think was that God had obviously made some serious error in judgment. I was completely in over my head. I was drowning. Drowning in fear, in confusion, in self-doubt. What was He thinking leaving me, of all people, in the target zone?
I, who felt no capacity whatsoever to withstand this assault. I, a lay person with a stale seminary degree, weak faith, crummy flailing self-discipline, and vast blank spaces in my head where all those Scriptures I hadn’t memorized should be. I, with my limited ability to rebound and my endless capacity for panic. I, who regularly failed to pray, and who fell asleep most nights without cracking a Bible. I, for some reason, had been allowed to wander into the shooting gallery, toddling dumbly along behind the little tin ducks.
I didn’t want to keep fighting this fight. I didn’t want to go inside the building. I wanted to sit there, on the steps of the library in the hot sun, and disappear. I wanted my old, easy, comfortable life to materialize, and for this all to have been some horrid bad dream.
But it wasn’t a dream. Erik Zocci was dead. Gavin was working on it. And my formerly ordered life was coming apart around me, pieces of it flying off in every direction. There was nowhere to go but forward.
I gathered my stuff as I gathered myself and trudged up the steps into the library.
I showed my SMU faculty ID in order to get a visitor’s pass.
“Welcome to Loyola, Dr. Foster,” said the guard.
Right. If he only knew. I fought the urge to warn him off. Keep a wide berth, I urged mentally, else you might get caught in the cross fire.
I tucked my ID back into my bag and headed straight for Reference, where I seated myself at a computer and retrieved a detailed map of Chicago.
Typing in the two addresses I had for the Zocci children, I could see that they lived in different parts of the city. Virginia Anne lived in an apartment downtown. Probably in one of those beautiful high-rise buildings overlooking the lake. James Andrew seemed to live in the suburbs. Something called Highland Park. I pictured kids, a dog, a barbecue. Maybe one of those plastic wading pools.
I used the trick the surly Realtor had taught me and went to the county appraisal district’s website, punching in each address, increasing the scope of my search to include the surrounding counties.
James Andrew’s home, purchased four years earlier in the name of James Andrew and Elizabeth Zocci, was listed on Lake County tax records for $2.2 million.
So much for my kid, dog, barbecue scenario.
I adjusted my imagination to accommodate the new image, feelings of fear creeping up the back of my neck as I envisioned ivy-laced stone walls, a circular brick driveway, a vast green lawn. I was reminded again of the magnitude of the forces lining up against me. This family had serious cash. Scary cash.
Virginia Anne’s address yielded more useful information. Her apartment, valued at $673,000, had not been purchased in her name. It had been purchased five years earlier by Garret Industries, Inc.
In my rush to get to Chicago, I’d forgotten to contact the Texas agency that would lead me to corporate information about Garret Industries. Now I couldn’t remember which agency I was supposed to call. I looked around. No reference librarians in sight. I stepped into the foyer with my cell phone and called the reference desk at SMU’s library.
“Cynthia. Dylan Foster.”
We exchanged pleasantries.
“I’m still trying to find out information about that business I asked you about,” I said.
“Garret Industries?”
“I can’t believe you remember the name.”
“I’m smart. And I’m a librarian. Besides, I ran the search for you myself.”
“And?”
“No Garret
Industries, Inc., registered with the secretary of state in Texas.”
“Rats. It was worth a try.”
“But …”
“But?”
“But … since I’m smart, and since I’m a librarian, and since I’m devoted to my job even though I’m severely underpaid, I did a little more digging for you.”
“And?”
“And Garret Industries, Inc. is registered to do business in the state of Texas. Just with a different office.”
“Which one?”
“The Railroad Commission.”
“It’s a railroad?”
“No. Garret Industries is an oil and gas company, licensed to drill land wells in the panhandle and to do offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil and gas permits are regulated by the Railroad Commission of Texas. Don’t ask me why.”
“Cynthia, you’re a genius.”
“I know.”
“How did you come up with the Railroad Commission?”
“A hunch. I’d run every state agency I could think of. The company name sounded so generic. It’s industrial, obviously, and in Houston, that probably means oil and gas. According to the RCT, Garret Industries has offices in Brownsville, Houston, and Galveston. The U.S. Department of Energy shows offices in all the other Gulf states. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida. Bing bing bing bing. Right down the line.”
“Who owns the company?”
“It’s a partnership. Guy named Sheldon Garret and something called MAZco.” She spelled it out for me as I wrote it down. “I pulled some history on Garret, which is incorporated in New York State, and a few things on MAZco, but that’s as far as I got.”
“Do you have all this in a file or something?”
“Of course.”
“Can you send it to me?”
“Hard copy or electronic?”
“Send it to my e-mail address.”
“Your university address?”
I thought better of it. “No. Let me call you back in a few minutes with a fax number.”
We hung up.
Since I was already making calls, I dialed my office voice mail and my home machine to check my messages.
I had one call from David, one from Helene, one from the pink Ice Queen lawyer, and fourteen calls from my father. He must have lost my cell phone number again. Each message was increasingly agitated. By now, he’d probably blown an artery or something.
I dialed his office number and got Janet.
She flew into her fussy-mother voice. “Honey, your father has been out of his mind with worry. We were just about to give you up for dead.”
“I’m fine. I just left town for a few days. Is he around?”
“Of course not. I’m going to page him, though, and tell him you’re all right. He’ll want to talk to you right away.”
“What does he want?”
“That same favor. It’s something to do with the wedding, that’s all I know. Kellee’s dogging him. You know how she is. He’s been hell on wheels all week.”
“Janet,” I said. “I cannot be in that wedding.”
“Well, you’re going to have to tell him yourself. You can’t dodge him forever.”
“Help me out here. Tell him I’m out of town and I forgot to bring my cell phone and that you didn’t ask me where I was staying.”
“Now, he’ll know that’s a lie,” she said. “He knows me better than that.”
“Then don’t tell him anything. Don’t even tell him I called. Just buy me a couple of days, Janet. I can’t deal with him right now.”
“Honey, are you okay?”
“I’m working on it.”
“You haven’t gotten yourself in any sort of trouble, have you?”
“No, of course not. I’ll be back by Saturday. I’ll call him when I get home.”
“He won’t make it that long. Heck, I won’t make it that long. He’ll have me calling the FBI by then.”
“Then tell him I called and left you a voice mail and didn’t leave a phone number. That ought to settle him down.”
“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “But you call him the second you get back. You promise me?”
“I promise.”
Back in the library, I found a staffer who supplied me with a fax number, then called Cynthia and stood by the fax machine as the pages rolled in.
I glanced through her research as it came out of the machine, realizing that there was too much information to digest quickly. I set it aside for now and went back to the computer.
It dawned on me that the appraisal district’s records might work backwards. Each time before, I had started with the address. I widened my search to include other local counties and tried again, this time typing in the name of each Zocci family member. None of the other children lived in the area, apparently. I finished with Joseph and Mariann Zocci.
I got a hit. Joseph Michael Zocci, Sr. owned a home in Lake County, purchased in 1987, worth $10.7 million. On thirty acres. Mariann was not listed as a co-owner.
Back to my map. Since it was a country home, the best I could do was locate the county, which was north of Chicago, fronting Lake Michigan.
I printed out my research, slipped it all into a folder with Cynthia’s information on Garret Industries, and then shoved it all in my bag.
I looked at my watch. It was almost two in the afternoon. I had eaten before sunup. I’d find myself a burger and then head back to the Vendome.
20
BY THE TIME I MADE it to the Vendome, I’d gotten myself completely freaked out thinking about Gavin. I was worried about him. But beyond that, it occurred to me that two suicides on my watch would be more than any professional’s reputation could withstand.
I decided the best thing to do was call Helene and confess now. It wouldn’t do for her to hear this from anyone but me. I called her office and left her a message that I needed to talk to her right away.
Walking into the lobby of the Vendome felt less daunting this time. But still, I had no real plan. I was here because I’d been led here. By whom or what, I didn’t know. And what I was supposed to do remained a mystery I decided to follow my own curiosity—look into the things that were puzzling me—and hope it led me to a next step.
I said a brief prayer for guidance and started with the gift shop.
Eloise, it turned out, was exactly as I’d pictured her. Silvery gray hair, conservatively coiffed. Pearl stud earrings, a silvery gray sweater twin set that matched her hair almost exactly, black pants. She was prim and elegant. Cordial without being friendly.
“Good afternoon,” she said as I walked in the door. “Please let me know if I may be of help to you.”
I went with the direct approach and walked right up to her, dispensing with the charade of browsing.
“I’m hoping you can help me. We spoke on the telephone the other day. I called about an order that had been charged to my credit card? I couldn’t remember what I’d purchased. Do you remember me?”
“Why yes,” she said. “I do remember. Ms … was it Foster?”
“Exactly Dylan Foster. Good memory.”
“And what may I do for you today?” she asked.
“I’m not sure, to be honest. The truth is, I never placed that order. I think someone used my card and ordered the items in my name.”
“My goodness! I do apologize. Have you spoken with your credit card company?”
“Not yet,” I said. “And I’m not terribly worried about that. I’m not shaking any trees to get my money back or anything. I’m just trying to clear up my own confusion. Do you happen to know who took the order?”
“I can look.” She asked me a few questions, reminding herself of the date of the transaction and the amount involved, and then stepped into an office at the rear of the shop. She’d retrieved the records within a couple of minutes.
“I took the order myself,” she said, coming back into the room. She handed me the ticket with the list of items and prices, pointing at her initials at
the bottom of the ticket.
“Do you remember anything about it?” I asked. “Any details of the conversation at all?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry but this was several weeks ago. I’m certain I couldn’t—”
“Look, I know this is going to sound strange, and I do apologize for imposing. I don’t want to put you on the spot. But it’s really important that I find out who placed this order. Do you mind trying something for me? I think I might be able to help you resurrect something about that phone call.”
She raised her eyebrows skeptically.
“Please,” I said. “It’ll only take a minute.
“You’re not a hypnotist or anything?”
I smiled. “A psychologist. I promise I’m not going to wave a pocket watch at you and tell you you’re getting sleepy.”
She looked around the empty shop for a moment, then relented. “All right.”
“Great.” I tried not to sound overly eager, which I was, of course. “Where do you usually stand when you’re taking a phone order?”
Eloise nodded at the other end of the room. “At that counter.”
“Could we walk over there, please?”
She obliged.
It was a bizarre moment, her compliance to move at my request. It felt almost as if I were committing a holdup or something, like I was herding the shopkeeper into the back of the store so I could make off with the cash. The only thing missing was a gun.
She stopped beside the counter.
“Do you usually stand in front of it or behind it?” I asked.
“Behind,” she said. I could tell she was starting to get intrigued.
“Do you mind?” I asked.
She walked obediently around the corner of the counter and stood there looking at me.
“Do you mind moving over by the telephone?” More holdup vibe. “Try standing exactly as you would when you receive a call.”
She stepped sideways a bit until she was to the left of the phone.
“Are you right-or left-handed?” I asked.
“Right.”
“So you usually hold the phone with your left hand and hold the pen in your right?”
“Yes, I guess I do.”
“Would you mind trying that? If you have a pen and an order pad, that would be great.”
When the Day of Evil Comes Page 14